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Lack of UN support, harsh terrain frustrate clampdown on FDLR rebels

Saturday April 04 2015

Lack of support from United Nations forces and harsh terrain have slowed down the military operations against Rwandan rebels in eastern Congo.

Wilson Kajwengye, director of peace and security at the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), noted that the Congolese army is faced with the challenges of vast thick forest and lack the experience in routing the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebels without hurting civilians.

READ: 4,500 civilians flee as DRC army pursues Rwandan rebels

Mr Kajwengye said this kind of technical approach could have been provided by the UN Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) comprising Tanzanian and South African forces, who have stayed away from the operations due to differences with the Congolese government.

The DRC government will now have to report to the ICGLR Extraordinary Summit slated for this month the territories it has captured and the weapons surrendered since Kinshasa launched the operations in late January after the expiry of the deadline for FDLR to surrender by January 2.

READ: Congo says kills rebels, gains ground against FDLR

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There have been no recent surrenders after December 2014, when about 300 combatants surrendered with smaller stockpiles of arms and ammunition. It is estimated that there are still about 1,500 hardened combatants in the forests of South and North Kivu.

The military operation was not a joint one, as the DRC decided to neutralise the rebel group alone following a disagreement with the UN over the human rights record of two of the Congolese generals chosen to lead the operation.

READ: UN playing ping-pong with FDLR rebels, says Rwanda

While Tanzania and South Africa were supposed to participate in the intervention, their engagement was to be done under the UN Force Intervention Brigade. Excluding the UN from the operation, effectively excluded Tanzanian and South African Forces.

President Joseph Kabila’s appointments of General Bruno Mandevu to head the operational against FDLR and Fall Sikabwe as the new head of the 34th Military Region in Goma forced the UN to withdraw any form of support on the grounds that the two generals have records of war crimes. 

However, Kinshasa has maintained that it is a sovereign nation with the supreme authority over its territory and is not willing to take orders from anybody.

The DRC government forces had carried out their first attacks against FDLR in South Kivu from February 24, and in North Kivu from February 26, but only about 180 suspects were captured, among them dependents of FDLR operatives, and not actual fighters.

Moreover, given that the Congolese army has retreated from captured areas and that FDLR have been able to return to some of their positions, observers have questioned the will and the capacity of the Kinshasa government to eliminate the FDLR.

Dr Yolande Bouka, a senior researcher with the Institute for Security Studies in charge of Great the Lakes region and Central Africa, argued that some of the challenges faced by Congolese army are related to the variety of tactics used by the FDLR to avoid military defeat. These strategies include hiding their military identity and blending into the population, storing and hiding weapons.

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